Prospects for Hermetic Sealing of Scaled-Up Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Generators for Reliable and Risk Free Operation

Sonya Calnan, Stefan Aschbrenner, Fuxi Bao, Erno Kemppainen, Iris Dorbandt and Rutger Schlatmann
Additional contact information
Sonya Calnan: PVcomB, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Schwarzschildstrasse 3, 12489 Berlin, Germany
Stefan Aschbrenner: PVcomB, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Schwarzschildstrasse 3, 12489 Berlin, Germany
Fuxi Bao: PVcomB, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Schwarzschildstrasse 3, 12489 Berlin, Germany
Erno Kemppainen: PVcomB, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Schwarzschildstrasse 3, 12489 Berlin, Germany
Iris Dorbandt: PVcomB, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Schwarzschildstrasse 3, 12489 Berlin, Germany
Rutger Schlatmann: PVcomB, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Schwarzschildstrasse 3, 12489 Berlin, Germany

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 21, 1-29

Abstract: Photo-electrochemical (PEC) systems have the potential to contribute to de-carbonation of the global energy supply because solar energy can be directly converted to hydrogen, which can be burnt without the release of greenhouse gases. However, meaningful deployment of PEC technology in the global energy system, even when highly efficient scaled up devices become available, shall only be a reality when their safe and reliable operation can be guaranteed over several years of service life. The first part of this review discusses the importance of hermetic sealing of up scaled PEC device provided by the casing and sealing joints from a reliability and risk perspective. The second part of the review presents a survey of fully functional devices and early stage demonstrators and uses this to establish the extent to which the state of the art in PEC device design address the issue of hermetic sealing. The survey revealed that current material choices and sealing techniques are still unsuitable for scale–up and commercialization. Accordingly, we examined possible synergies with related photovoltaic and electrochemical devices that have been commericalised, and derived therefrom, recommendations for future research routes that could accelerate the development of hermetic seals of PEC devices.

Keywords: photo-electrochemical; solar hydrogen generator; hermetic sealing; reliability; safety; scale-up (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/21/4176/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/21/4176/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:21:p:4176-:d:282596

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().